AFTEREFFECTS: POLICY

AFTEREFFECTS: POLICY; U.S. Reported to Push for Iraqi Government, With Pentagon Prevailing

By DOUGLAS JEHL with ERIC SCHMITT

Published: April 30, 2003

WASHINGTON, April 29—
The decision by Iraqi delegates in Baghdad to try to cobble together a transitional government at the end of May has been prompted in part by a push from the Bush administration, which wants to move swiftly to put an Iraqi face on power, according to senior American officials.

The delegates' plan to convene a national conference sooner than planned was pressed by the United States from behind the scenes in what the officials described as a marked acceleration of efforts to forge a new Iraqi government.

The officials said the stepped-up process represented an ascension of the Pentagon's argument in what had been a bitter internal administration debate about how, when and under what terms the United States should hand over power to Iraqis.

The Iraqi delegates' decision to refer to a new governing body as a ''transitional government,'' instead of an interim authority, the phrase favored by the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, seemed to reflect the administration's new approach, which officials said had been endorsed by the White House in the last week.

American officials who organized the conference accepted the wording change, said administration officials.

The turning point in deciding to push swiftly for Iraqi government, officials said, came at a National Security Council meeting early last week and was fueled by concerns that a power vacuum inside Iraq was increasingly being filled by anti-American voices, including those sympathetic to Iran.

''We needed the Iraqis to step up to the plate,'' said a senior administration official, who said American officials had conveyed the sense of urgency to the handpicked Iraqi delegates at Monday's meeting, sponsored by the United States and Britain.

Still, one official insisted tonight that ''we didn't stage manage.''

There was a new hint today of lingering tensions within the administration over the transition. In testimony on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, without being specific, said it was possible that the operations of the American administrator in Iraq, Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant general, might be shifted away from direct Pentagon control.

The Iraqi delegates on Monday called for a national conference in late May to select the transitional government and determine whether it would consist of a leadership council or a single head of state, said the Bush administration's envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad.

The administration will try to keep the process on track without being perceived as its primary architect, senior officials said.

''There continues to be a view that this shouldn't look like a solution imposed on the Iraqis from the coalition,'' a senior American official said.

At the same time, a second official said, the United States would prefer that the Iraqi delegates endorse a structure that would include a single central decision-maker.

''I think we need to defer to them if they have a clear point of view,'' the official said. ''If they don't have a clear point of view, I think our point of view is that it is probably better to have someone who has an ultimate tiebreaking decision-making authority.''

Until last week, the State Department and the C.I.A. had argued that the United States should wait ''some months'' to create an interim Iraqi authority, several administration officials said. To move too quickly, the officials argued, would allow Pentagon-backed exiles like Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, to gain undue influence, to the exclusion of candidates from inside the country.

But the Pentagon, apparently with support from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, had always urged as rapid a transition as possible.

Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, had weighed the possibility of establishing a provisional government even before the war, and have argued that exiles like Mr. Chalabi are well organized, know what they need to do, and could integrate with emerging leaders from inside.

Ultimately, administration officials said, mounting signs of anti-American sentiments in Iraq, and some alarm over the Iranian influence, helped to give the Pentagon the upper hand in forging a consensus.

The White House said last week that it had warned Iran against meddling in Iraqi affairs, but the level of concern remains acute, senior administration officials said. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said repeatedly that the United States will not tolerate an Iranian-style theocracy in Iraq, the majority of whose population, like that of Iran, is composed of Shiite Muslims.

Administration officials said they were reluctant today to spell out just what a transitional Iraqi government might entail, and how its powers might exceed those of the interim authority envisioned. Indeed, speaking late Monday, one senior administration official cautioned that it remained unclear whether the Iraqi delegates could meet the deadline of late May or early June.

''A number of people are talking about that, but a number of people think it will take longer,'' the official said. ''We haven't come to a determination about that, and we are not going to try to rush it.''

As recently as March, when American officials met with Iraqi opposition leaders in northern Iraq, they said that the United States envisioned a three-step process. The first step would be the formation of an interim authority, with power over some government ministries. Under the initial timetable, that move was not to take place until three to six months after the government fell.

The next step would have been the formation of a provisional government, with broader powers, six months to two years after the interim authority was created. The election of a permanent Iraqi government, after the drafting of a constitution, was to have been the third step.

The Iraqi ministries of defense, state security and intelligence ''would stay with the coalition for a while,'' a period that some American officials said could also last years.

But other ministries, like health, education and agriculture, could be handed over to Iraqi control more quickly.

Such a transfer could give a transitional government some political momentum and tangible things to do, besides beginning to draft a new constitution, Pentagon officials said.